White Collar

  • August 12, 2025

    NM School Board Sues Feds Over Native American Bias Probe

    A New Mexico school board is suing the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and acting Chair Andrea Lucas, arguing they overstepped their authority by lodging an "overly broad and vague" Native American discrimination charge and probe against it.

  • August 12, 2025

    DOJ Demurs On Lawsuit Seeking Emil Bove Docs

    The U.S. Department of Justice is contesting a watchdog's lawsuit seeking to obtain public records requests on now-Third Circuit Judge Emil Bove, who was formerly President Donald Trump's criminal attorney and a top DOJ official.

  • August 12, 2025

    Pa. Guilty Plea Means Nothing To Malpractice Case, Atty Says

    An ex-chief financial officer suing his former attorney for allegedly coercing him into a consent agreement that landed him with an over $12 million judgment has urged a Florida federal court to keep his malpractice case against the attorney on track.

  • August 12, 2025

    Uber's Tip Led FBI To $5M 'Grandparent Scam' Ring, Feds Say

    A suspicious pattern of Uber trips to banks by older people led the company to contact the FBI, uncovering a multinational "grandparent scam" operation that stole $5 million from at least 400 people, Massachusetts federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

  • August 12, 2025

    AI Staffing Co. Joonko Gets OK To Wind Down In Ch. 11

    A Delaware bankruptcy judge on Tuesday approved Joonko Diversity Inc.'s Chapter 11 liquidation plan after the debtor resolved objections from shareholders and others, letting the artificial intelligence-powered recruitment firm wind down its business and repay creditors.

  • August 11, 2025

    5th Circ. Backs Mexican Banks' Subpoena For Fraud Case

    The Fifth Circuit on Monday refused to revive a Mexican businessman's motion to quash a subpoena stemming from major Mexican financial institutions' efforts to obtain discovery as they pursue claims that the businessman absconded with $32 million in loans, saying it detected "no error" in a lower court's denial.

  • August 11, 2025

    9th Circ. Affirms SEC Win In Life Insurance Investment Row

    The Ninth Circuit ruled in a published opinion Monday that fractional interests in life settlements are investment contracts and thus securities, backing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's win against Pacific West Capital Group agents, who the SEC alleged sold unregistered securities and didn't properly register as broker-dealers.

  • August 11, 2025

    Feds Charge Mexican Businessmen In Pemex Bribery Scheme

    Two Mexican businessmen living in the U.S. are accused of taking part in a bribery scheme to secure at least $2.5 million in business with Mexico's state-owned oil company, Petróleos Mexicanos, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday.

  • August 11, 2025

    'Flipping NJ' Developer Fights Charges, Citing Habba's Role

    A New Jersey real estate developer and influencer, who is accused of running a Ponzi-like investment fraud scheme and laundering drug money, on Monday became the latest defendant to seek dismissal of his indictment over what he says was the illegal appointment of Alina Habba as acting U.S. attorney for the Garden State.

  • August 11, 2025

    11th Circ. Nixes Ineffective-Counsel Claim In Salmonella Case

    Peanut Corp. of America's former president and a food broker convicted for their roles in a salmonella outbreak that killed nine people and sickened more than 700 cannot throw out their prison sentences, the Eleventh Circuit ruled Monday, rejecting their assertion of ineffective counsel.

  • August 11, 2025

    GE, UNC Agree To $63M Uranium Mine Cleanup In New Mexico

    The United Nuclear Corp. and General Electric Co. agreed to a consent decree with the federal government, New Mexico and the Navajo Nation to spend $63 million on environmental cleanup at a decades-old uranium mine, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday.  

  • August 11, 2025

    How A Nonexistent Bar Unraveled A California Bribery Case

    The criminal case against Palm Springs, California, developer John Wessman hinged on a cooperating witness's testimony that Wessman hatched a plan with him at a bar to bribe the city's then-mayor, but his defense counsel from Keker Van Nest & Peters LLP blew up that story on cross-examination by demonstrating the bar hadn't even opened at that time, helping to obtain an acquittal.

  • August 11, 2025

    Miles Guo Ordered To Forfeit $1.3B In Fraud Case

    Bankrupt Chinese exile Miles Guo must forfeit $1.3 billion in cash, luxury goods and real estate, including his 21-bedroom New Jersey mansion, a New York federal judge said Monday, more than a year after the purported billionaire was found guilty of wide-ranging fraud.

  • August 11, 2025

    Chicago Suburb's Ex-Mayor Gets 4 Years For Extortion, Bribery

    A former mayor of McCook, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, was sentenced to four years in federal prison Monday for accepting more than $250,000 in bribes and extortion payments.

  • August 11, 2025

    Tulsa Says Settlement Moots High Court Jurisdiction Bid

    Tulsa is asking the Supreme Court to deny a petition by an Oklahoma attorney that looks to undo his conviction stemming from a speeding ticket issued on tribal lands, arguing it seeks review of a broader jurisdictional question that the municipality and the Creek Nation have already resolved.

  • August 11, 2025

    Liberty Mutual Nabs FCPA Declination, Will Disgorge $4.7M

    Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. will avoid prosecution under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and disgorge nearly $4.7 million over bribes paid by employees of its Indian subsidiary, the U.S. Department of Justice said Monday, in the first FCPA declination since President Donald Trump paused prosecutions under the law.

  • August 11, 2025

    Ex-Ill. Speaker's 'False Hope' Won't Delay Prison Sentence

    Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan must begin serving his seven-year bribery and wire fraud prison sentence as ordered in October, a federal judge has ruled, finding that Madigan "clings to false hope" in arguing his forthcoming appeal to the Seventh Circuit will present an issue substantial enough to overturn his entire conviction.

  • August 11, 2025

    SEC Says Biotech Investor Traded On Inside Info About Deal

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed suit against a Texas-based individual investor, accusing him of insider trading on stocks by buying shares of a public biotech firm ahead of its 2020 merger with a privately held biotechnology company.

  • August 11, 2025

    McDermott, Other Firms Sign Deal To End $4.4M Guo Claims

    McDermott Will & Schulte, four other law firms and one consulting firm have agreed to settle, for an undisclosed amount and without formal litigation, clawback claims totaling $4.4 million by the Chapter 11 estate of bankrupt Chinese exile and convicted criminal Miles Guo.

  • August 11, 2025

    Girardi's Public Defender Rejoins Kendall Brill & Kelly

    A federal public defender who represented disgraced plaintiffs attorney Tom Girardi in his wire fraud trial has returned to Kendall Brill & Kelly LLP in Los Angeles as a partner, the firm said Monday.

  • August 11, 2025

    Pa. Judge Accused Of COVID Fraud Seeks Diversion Deal

    A Pennsylvania county judge facing criminal charges for allegedly misusing COVID-19 unemployment relief money to pay his former law firm's staff is working with prosecutors to enter into a pretrial diversion agreement, with the federal court agreeing to hold a conference on the matter, according to court filings Monday.

  • August 11, 2025

    FTX Customers Aim To Beef Up Case Against Fenwick & West

    New information that has emerged since customers of the now-collapsed cryptocurrency trading platform FTX Trading Ltd. sued Fenwick & West LLP over the firm's alleged role in that collapse justifies updating the complaint against the firm, those customers told a Florida federal court Monday.

  • August 11, 2025

    White & Case Adds Ex-Chicago Prosecutor From Perkins Coie

    White & Case LLP has grown its global litigation practice in Chicago with the addition of a longtime Perkins Coie LLP partner who previously was an assistant U.S. attorney in the city, the firm said Monday.

  • August 11, 2025

    Terraform Founder Set To Plead Out Of $40B Fraud Case

    Terraform founder Do Kwon is on track to enter a guilty plea in his $40 billion criminal fraud case, a Manhattan federal judge said Monday, in an order that comes ahead of a scheduled 2026 trial and amid weeks of talks between his lawyers and prosecutors.

  • August 11, 2025

    NY Judge Won't Unseal 'Redundant' Maxwell Grand Jury Docs

    A New York federal judge on Monday denied the Trump administration's bid to unseal grand jury transcripts and exhibits in the prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell, who is appealing a 20-year prison sentence for trafficking teenage girls for sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, concluding that the materials contain almost nothing new.

Expert Analysis

  • DOJ-HHS Collab Crystallizes Focus On Health Enforcement

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    The recently announced partnership between the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to combat False Claims Act violations, following a multiyear trend of high-dollar DOJ recoveries, signals a long-term enforcement horizon with major implications for healthcare entities and whistleblowers, say attorneys at RJO.

  • What To Do When Congress And DOJ Both Come Knocking

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    As recently seen in the news, clients may find themselves facing parallel U.S. Department of Justice and congressional investigations, requiring a comprehensive response that considers the different challenges posed by each, say attorneys at Friedman Kaplan.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Learning From Failure

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    While law school often focuses on the importance of precision, correctness and perfection, mistakes are inevitable in real-world practice — but failure is not the opposite of progress, and real talent comes from the ability to recover, rethink and reshape, says Brooke Pauley at Tucker Ellis.

  • How Courts Are Addressing The Use Of AI In Discovery

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    In recent months, several courts have issued opinions on handling discovery issues involving artificial intelligence, which collectively offer useful insights on integrating AI into discovery and protecting work product in connection with AI prompts and outputs, says Philip Favro at Favro Law.

  • Tips For Crypto AI Agent Developers Under SEC Watch

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    With agents powered by artificial intelligence increasingly making decisions in the cryptocurrency world, there's a chance the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission could use the Investment Advisers Act to regulate this technology in financial services, but there are ways developers can mitigate regulatory risks, say attorneys at Morrison Cohen.

  • Series

    Adapting To Private Practice: From ATF Director To BigLaw

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    As a two-time boomerang partner, returning to BigLaw after stints as a U.S. attorney and the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, people ask me how I know when to move on, but there’s no single answer — just clearly set your priorities, says Steven Dettelbach at BakerHostetler.

  • New DOJ Penalty Policy Could Spell Trouble For Cos.

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    In light of the U.S. Department of Justice’s recently published guidance making victim relief a core condition of coordinated resolution crediting, companies facing parallel investigations must carefully calibrate their negotiation strategies to minimize the risk of duplicative penalties, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • A Look At Key 5th Circ. White Collar Rulings So Far This Year

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    In the first half of 2025, the Fifth Circuit has decided numerous cases of particular import to white collar practitioners, which collectively underscore the critical importance of meticulous recordbuilding, procedural compliance and strategic litigation choices at every stage of a case, says Joe Magliolo at Jackson Walker.

  • How Cos. In China Can Tailor Compliance Amid FCPA Shifts

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    The U.S. Department of Justice’s recently updated Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement guidelines create a fluid business environment for companies operating in China that will require a customized compliance approach to navigate both countries’ corporate and legal systems, say attorneys at Dickinson Wright.

  • Series

    Playing Baseball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Playing baseball in college, and now Wiffle ball in a local league, has taught me that teamwork, mental endurance and emotional intelligence are not only important to success in the sport, but also to success as a trial attorney, says Kevan Dorsey at Swift Currie.

  • APA Relief May Blunt Justices' Universal Injunction Ruling

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    The Administrative Procedure Act’s avenue for universal preliminary relief seems to hold the most promise for neutralizing the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. CASA to limit federal district courts' nationally applicable orders, say attorneys at Crowell.

  • Managing Risks As State AGs Seek To Fill Enforcement Gap

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    Given an unprecedented surge in state attorney general activity resulting from significant shifts in federal enforcement priorities, companies must consider tailored strategies for navigating the ever-evolving risk landscape, say attorneys at Cozen O'Connor.

  • Opinion

    Prosecutors' Duty To Justice Sometimes Demands Mea Culpa

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    Two recent cases — U.S. v. Lucas and U.S. v. Echavarria — demonstrate that prosecutors’ special ethical duty to seek justice can sometimes be in tension with other obligations and incentives, but it nonetheless requires them to concede their mistakes in the interests of justice, say Eastern District of Texas law clerk Ian Stephens and Texas A&M University law professor Jemila Lea.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Skillful Persuasion

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    In many ways, law school teaches us how to argue, but when the ultimate goal is to get your client what they want, being persuasive through preparation and humility is the more likely key to success, says Michael Friedland at Friedland Cianfrani.

  • FCA Working Group Reboot Signals EHR Compliance Risk

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    The revival of the False Claims Act working group is an aggressive expansion of enforcement efforts by the Justice Department and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services targeted toward technology-enabled fraud involving electronic health records and other data, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.

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